Hello, ladies and gents Roberts. Thanks kiddo, Savage that
comment today I've got special guest at Melanie Thomas on the
line. I met her at the keto palooza
conference this past year, and I just kind of wanted a little bit
deeper into what she's been able to accomplish with the carnivore
diet. Turn her whole family are doing
Quito and carnivore. She's got two daughters or
husbands doing Quito. She's doing a more strict
version of carnivore. She's been able to reverse a ton
of health issues. She's totally turned her life
around, lost a ton of weight gotten healthier, just
everything's much better for her.
And I just Want to get a little more back story as to how she
accomplished that and what her motivations have been to start,
putting her journey out on YouTube and just be out there to
help people along with their Journey.
So thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.
I've got no doubt that you will take something from it.
She is definitely in the space producing content and trying to
help people for all the right reasons, which is why I really
wanted to just get on the podcast.
So without further Ado, sit back relax.
Enjoy the conversation with Melanie Thomas.
And we are live Melanie. How are you?
I'm great. How are you doing?
I'm doing a wonderfully, well, as well.
We met for the first time at sceeto palooza, right?
That's that's right. We met last summer at the keto,
palooza in Louisville, where I'm from.
And I had the privilege of getting to hear you speak, and I
got to meet you and your beautiful.
Cool. Wife and amazing little boy.
And yeah, it was a great 10-minute conversation that we
had. So I wanted to yeah, reach out
and talk some more. Yeah.
No, it was great. I mean that, we like you said,
we spoke for a brief moment after the conference was
actually over. You had some kiddos as well,
your husband was there and we were talking and yeah, we
started diving into your Mac store a little bit with
nutrition doing like carnivore and whatnot.
So I kind of want to just Dive into that for the listeners.
Can you can you give me some back story as to what got you
into the keto carnivore space to begin with?
Sure absolutely. So I grew up very you know
standard American diet. I had a lot of health issues
that really started surfacing in my 20s.
I started to gain weight. I had always struggled with
mental health issues, Issues. Since I was a child and I just
now, I'm 38 years old. Let me back up a little bit.
I had never heard of carnivore. I had never heard of the lion
diet, anything like that. Until I saw a, I guess was a
podcast of Joe Rogan and Michaela Peterson and my husband
and I were at home, we were watching this show And something
just clicked and was like I feel like I need to do this and I had
struggled for years with multiple chronic conditions and
weight gain my worst condition I would say was I had Interstitial
cystitis and it is completely cured.
It is gone since I went carnivore.
And can you tell The listeners. What?
That is exactly sure, sure. So Interstitial cystitis is also
known as painful bladder syndrome and it kind of gets I
would want to say under-diagnosed or misdiagnosed
because it looks just like a UTI as far as the symptoms, but you
do not test positive for having bacteria.
So what happened was I would show signs of a UTI as a child
and be put on an antibiotic. Without ever checking that I
had, you know, bacteria or not. So I have been on more
antibiotics than I can. Even like I don't even want to
admit, how many I've probably been on.
And, you know, as a result of that, I had terrible gut issues.
I had terrible mental health issues, I had, you know, weight
gain acne, I had a form of lupus, That affects the skin.
I had chronic fatigue. I had chronic migraines and all
of this just literally disappeared.
When I went carnivore. The thing that actually that
made me say okay I have to tell the world is is when I got to
cancel my appointment to. So I was going to see a her I
was going to have Hand surgery, I had carpal tunnel syndrome so
bad, I couldn't even write. I couldn't even hold my baby and
they kept telling me. Well, this will go away after
you give birth. And it never did.
And long story short, I went carnivore, somehow.
This carpal tunnel was just completely just wiped away. and
when it all the helmet start, like, when was the Inception of
all the health concerns, Oh gosh, you know, I feel like a
lot of its are like, been there the whole time.
I just never associated with food with what I was eating and
nobody ever said anything. When I would go to the doctor
about well what are you eating? No one ever said that because I
was always a very thin person until my 20s.
That's when I started to gain weight, I would say you know
five to ten pounds a year. So I at my heaviest This was 220
pounds and for people that they're going to look like yeah.
But never look like you were ever to have £20 crazy.
Yeah, I know, I know it's crazy. And yeah, I, you know, I don't
have a lot of before and after pictures because I hated the way
I looked for so many years that I don't even have any pictures,
but I do have a few and I have a little bit of it on my YouTube
channel, but yeah. I've lost 70 pounds and that
just seems like how is that possible?
But I think I had a lot of inflammation sitting and just
festering on my body. A lot of fluid and obviously
fat, but you know, I was eating just straight trash, if I can be
blunt. I mean stuff that isn't even
food is what I lived on for the first.
Thirtysomething years of my life.
So it's it's crazy that I'm able to talk to you about this and
see it in hindsight. But yeah.
Nobody. Nobody ever caught on to oh you
know she's got a UTI every month since she was 23 years old or,
you know, I mean, I had yeast infections when I was only 34
years old and that's honestly that's brought on by the
Antibiotic. Use to what was your night?
Pretty pretty poor from the very beginning like where you just as
a child eating pretty, pretty poor nutrition, very poor
nutrition, very poor. I was pretty much raised on
whatever was really fast and what was really easy and cheap.
And I don't want to like lay my parents or anything but they
both worked full-time. I was what I consider a latchkey
kid. So it was just my sister and I
kind of you know, there'd be days where all I ate that day
was a bag of Lay's potato chips and Sprite and that was what I
ate. And I remember eating Frosted
Flakes every morning, And you know, peanut butter and jelly.
It's cool. And I never had, you know, I was
always very thin. So, no one ever thought twice
that I wasn't You know, I think it might have been different if
I was a heavy as a kid but nobody cared, they really didn't
care and we grew up on fast food as well.
So I mean, dinner was whatever you could get it Wendy's or
McDonald's and pizza. So that's how I grew up.
And of course, fat phobic like super fat phobic.
If we if my parents did cook they would drain the meat or you
know, do Don't eat butter or I don't know, just skim milk.
Everything was skim milk and don't eat eggs.
So it's pretty much the exact opposite of what I eat now.
Yeah, are your siblings? You said, yes, the an older
sister to hear that, right? I do.
Yes. My sister Carla.
She is 5 years older than me. Yep.
Does she eats similar to you now to sheet similar to what she'd
always been eating. So, she actually went low carb,
a few years ago, and was in the best shape of her life.
And then she kind of like, a lot of people kind of like fell off
the wagon and now she just eats whatever she wants.
And And I'll say, you know, do you ever think about maybe
getting back, you know, getting back the way you were, you know,
because you were feeling so good and she's like, no, I think I'm
too old now. And I was just like, well, I'm
not that much younger than you. And I had, I mean, I've had two
kids even so if you know it, I was just trying to basically say
like you can do this, if I could do it, but they kind of look at
me. Like, I'm crazy like her and her
husband. We went Traveled together a few
months ago and of course you know, I pack all my little
special Foods, my meats and eggs and butter.
And they just look at me, like, good grief, whatever and they
don't, they're not mean about it.
But I do have people that are like, overly offended and say
things to me about it, and that's a tough one.
Yeah, family friends like people take offense, they take offense
to the strangest. Things.
Like if what you were doing nutritionally speaking is
working well for you then more power to you.
People should only be supportive of that.
But the problem is, I think people just don't get how
impactful their food decisions really are.
So they just assume that there's no no no harm, no foul that
comes with eating, whatever they give you, where it's just not
the case, right? And I try to explain to people,
you know, since I've started eating this way, it's just
really changed my life for the better.
And And I feel so good and positive and like, I can do
anything. I told my best friend, even, you
know, I said, I, I sleep like a baby.
And when I wake up, I'm ready to roll.
Like, I jump out of bed and she just thought, what like, what do
you mean? And I'm like, like I feel better
than I've ever felt and she just thought that was just.
Wow. You know, but she just had a
baby and she said well, Well, maybe I'll do what you do after
I have the baby. And I said, okay, well, I'm game
whenever you're ready. I would love to help you.
So that's kind of how I've been approaching it is.
If someone comes to me and asks, what can I do then?
I just say, okay, I'll help you. Yeah, I kind of had to learn the
hard way, like people don't want your help unless they ask.
Yeah. It's very true or not.
True. And it's unfortunate, but like
you drive a wedge. Against people between people
and make them even more. Even less likely to ask for
help. If you try to help it strange
thing, you just have to let them come to you, totally completely.
Absolutely. And that's a really tough thing
to swallow because I am surrounded and I don't know if
you and your wife have this issue to, but it's almost like
an alienation of you know it's like we don't go out and drink.
We don't go out to eat anymore and when we go to parties, we
don't like to be out super late, you know?
And because we value our sleep and so that I guess it's a
really weird thing to people. And yeah, we should we should be
friends for sure because we are the exact same like Crystal and
we'll go to like an event that people would invite us to the
party in the party starts at 8:00.
And I'm like that's literally my bedtime like I don't even want
to go. Oh my gosh, I kid you not
Robert. We got invited to a party this
Friday, the 13th. It starts at 8:00 and it's to
watch Friday the 13th movies. And I literally was like girl
like I go to bed at like 9:00 so I don't think we're going to be
like yeah yeah they probably would have talking about my kids
I'd like know myself. Like I have to get good sleep to
be a very productive person. It's funny because like I
remember not sleeping I'm not going to bed until very very
late like all through college. And I felt at least I think I
felt like I was totally productive the following day.
Whereas now if I was to do that I would just be like I would not
be productive at all. Like I would I would you know
grip my way through the day but I would not be productive.
So I'm halfway wondering have I lost some of that resilience and
just flexibility or if I just become so much more in tune with
what feels good and what feels bad I'm leaning Towards the
ladder. At least that makes me feel
better. I do think we.
We are more in tune with our bodies when we get rid of the
junk and we're more in tune with.
Whoa, that makes me feel like crap or that.
Makes me feel really good. I'm pretty much able to pinpoint
and figure out. Now, what is causing any sort of
issue because I have tightened up I diet so well.
And I've also prioritize Aged, you know, my sleep and I never
realized how important it was to get a good night sleep.
And you know how hard it is when you have a baby?
Oh my gosh, you know, for the first I feel like But the first
year of my first daughter's life, I don't think I slept more
than a couple hours, a night. She was a really difficult baby.
So I feel like maybe I'm making up for that lost.
Maybe maybe, yeah, because that's a lot.
But yeah. So my two kids are full of
energy, like kids should be. And you know, I basically have
to be straight with people do. Like I got to go to bed because
I got to wake up. At the butt crack of dawn, with
these kids because that's they're going to get up at 6:00.
No matter what. Yeah, well I gotta be ready to
go. What kind of diet are they
following? They have anything specific
protocol there. So we do keto for the kids and I
do allow like, if they go to some my, my seven-year-old, we
just went to a birthday party. I did allow her to have like
their party food like the cupcake, whatever.
I do allow treats for special events, but once we get home,
it's back into, you know, eggs for breakfast.
And we do that cloud bread instead of regular bread and
then we'll do like chicken, they love rotisserie chicken so I'll
try and give them that. What else?
And I know my kids eat fruit. And my husband, you know, he's
he do so I mean he's eating asparagus and different salads
and vegetables and things like that with his needs and the kids
feel poorly after they have the party foods.
Like if they eat a bunch of cupcakes or something that they
feel poorly afterwards. Absolutely, absolutely.
And we talked about it I'll tell my daughter Kate I say you know
yes you can have a cupcake but I want you to know.
II, you know, basically, like I don't want you complaining
tonight about how bad your stomach because I've told you
and you know how that makes your belly feel?
She's like, I know I know when I'm like, all right.
And that it was like Halloween, for instance, you know, she got
the JJ, of course, giant bag of candy.
And I said, all right, you can pick out a couple of things and
then everything else has to go, you know, it's Leo mom, you know
and I'm like It's okay and then she gets over it you know you
think your first I used to think I'm being a mean mom I'm not
letting her have all this stuff and like know I'm being a really
good mom so I need to just realize like I you know I care
about my child. My children's health so much
that. Yeah I just I'm gonna do what I
have to do. Ya feel like I'm and I'm very
new at this whole parenting thing so I may be totally
Speaking out of turn here, but I feel like a lot of the things
that parents do for their kids when it comes to like Halloween,
like all these Traditions that are centered around food and
candies and sugars. Like it's honestly just like
they'll say that they're trying to let them live a little bit,
but it's just laziness in my opinion on the parents part
because they don't want to have to fight that fight and maybe I
get, I'm totally speak out of turn.
I'm not be getting some people right now, but I think that's
the case because it takes a lot more effort to To have the
conversation around, why we don't do that, why?
It's not wise to do that or just have like a better approach to
that in and of itself, but it's much easier just so yeah.
It's you know, Halloween go get your bag full of candy, you
know, knock yourself out indulge and I don't know, I think the
whole moniker of you know do this.
It's only once a year. That's just a cop-out in my
opinion. Yeah.
Yeah, it is. And it's also yeah, you're
right. If I choose to give my kids
processed food, it's honestly me being lazy because I don't have
time to either go and get the food and cook it.
Or I don't feel like like you said, fight them because it is a
fight to have your child go to school and they're serving, you
know, gummy fruit gummy snacks. And Otto's and all this and I'm
like you're not getting any of that and that I think that can
feel kind of funny for a kid to be like I'm the only one that's
not eating this. Yeah but at the same time I'll
talk to my daughter as if she's an adult sometimes and be like
look You know, like right now I have an aunt and an uncle both
dying in a nursing home. Both from Alzheimer's, my
uncle's dying from early onset Alzheimers and my aunt is dying
from regular Alzheimer's, whatever.
Both of them. Are my a, what do I want to call
this? They're just like, they're
always in my head. I'm always thinking about them
when I'm eating or when I'm giving my kids food because I'm
so scared of what could happen. If I give my kids sugar, I know
that sounds weird but they definitely motivate me to clean
up. My ACT clean up my act, as a mom
with what? I'm serving my kids, and it's
hard for me to see like nieces and nephews being given, you
know, really bad stuff. And it's hard to bite your
tongue. But yeah, that's I just know.
Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard to see it and I
feel like especially when it comes to other members of the
family, like, I don't know. Like I've got family members as
well that have struggled with Alzheimer's dementia.
You know, heart disease like the whole, you know, shebang and not
to say that. If they had changed your diet,
it would have 100% absolve them of those issues.
But it would certainly have Tim in the better, trajectory to
minimize those adverse effects and I feel like, you know,
anything that you can do for your own life and the things
that you have control over, IE your kids nutrition least in
their early years, like you owe it to them, you owe it to you,
you owe it to the family to do so and it's hard.
Like, I don't know, like I'm not totally understand, you're
coming from because I got family members, whom I love deeply and
they scoff at what I do with regards to nutrition, yet, I'm
healthier than all of them and that's frustrating because it's
like Like you know I want the same for y'all.
Like I don't want to be out living my family.
I want us to all be healthy together.
Yes. And I talked, I told my mom all
the time, I don't want to be like, my Aunt Mary and visiting
you in the the nursing home. And I don't want to end up, you
know, just being faced with some of these difficult things that
I've seen my family members go through while caring for someone
with Alzheimer's. And it's definitely on my mind
of something that I mean that's probably the scariest thing to
think that I could get and my grandmother died with it as
well. So, I mean, it's in the family
and but it's also Like I think that it's genetic and diet and
I'm leaning more towards. I think it's mostly diet That's
just from what I've observed in my own little family.
I think that's kind of like genetic predispositions and then
diet and lifestyle kind of, you know, unlock the genetic code.
So, to speak to make those Snips fire or not.
Fire. Exactly.
Yeah. When it comes to having, like a
grandmother and now, aunt and uncle that have, you know,
Alzheimer's is there like a specific?
Memory that burns deep in your mind with like an interaction
with them that you just think of instantaneously when you think
of that situation. Like of the Alzheimer's stuff.
Yeah. Because like a lot of people
listening they don't they may not have families within so they
like this is a lot of people know somebody that has struggled
with it but some people don't. So like I don't feel like a lot
of people realize how much sad so it is so painful for someone
to not know who you are and then like my my Aunt, Carol, for
instance, used to be the head honcho of my Emily.
Like, if there was a big decision that need to be made,
she made it, I mean, she was like the strongest woman I knew,
and she used to Take Me Out and because I would cut school and
she would take me out shopping and her convertible and just
like, just crazy to think that she's this.
She's this little like body laying in a bed.
That's just waiting to die. And it's like how is that my
Aunt Carol, how did that happen? And I think of my my uncle John
and He was a brilliant guy and he had a family business and he
was successful guy and he was religious and he declined so
quickly. Oh gosh, it was just like, how
is this happening to someone who, you know, who lived this
life and was productive and a good person?
And it's like, it happens. It can happen to anybody and my
grandma, she started doing some really crazy things.
I remember, you know, and it finally got to the point where
it was dangerous. And so, you know, a lot of
people that have dementia will start kind of showing these odd
think, like, God signs of cognitive decline, so they'll
forget where things are, and then it's like, they forget
where they are. And then they forget how How to
get back home, or things like that.
Yeah. You know, with my grandma.
I mean, we noticed she come home and the car would have dents on
it and we'd say, were you in a car accident?
She'd say what, what do you mean?
Yeah, but things like that, which I know it's not funny but,
you know, just Yeah, I hate dementia like I hate it with a
passion so there's a big part of my, you know my why is I almost
want to like avenge their their deaths?
Does that make any sense? Like, yeah, for sure.
I was listening to a podcast the other day and I forget who it
was with. But it was somebody was creating
a documentary. You all around Alzheimer's and
Dementia and how nutrition like I think his mother had it really
bad. Yeah.
Oh gosh. What is his name is?
It wasn't Max live here. Was that him Max?
Yes, Max and, you know, his last name I guess we're I think it's
like white boxes or little don't forget the title of it, but
solving, these little boxes, empty Little Boxes.
Yeah. And see little boxes and I watch
that trailer and I listen to that.
Pain? Because I don't know if it was
on Rogan or if he was on a tee. I'm not sure who's listening,
who he was with, but I was listening to that and I watch
the trailer for that documentary.
And like, if there's anything that anybody can do anything,
that we can learn as a society to, you know, hedge their bets,
in our favor, to minimize those adverse effects, for people
loved ones. Like, I'm all, I'm all in on
that because that is, that is no way to go.
No, it's not and You know, I like I said my daughter.
So she's in the first grade and I'm the room mom.
And so I'll go in and help out with things every now and then
I'll just see all these little kids.
And I mean, they just they're running around like little bit,
just crazy. And I'm thinking good grief,
these kids are like Jack on something and you know, they'll
be sitting there eating their Cheetos and their juice boxes.
All this stuff. And I'm thinking, whoa, what's
going on? You know what?
And so, I'm so scared of like, what's going to happen to these
little kids when they turn into adults and have all these health
issues? And, you know, they have health
issues now earlier in earlier, this is starting, and I know
that when they eat that way, there's no way that they can
give their full attention at school and, and now, Actually
processed all this information and so I mean I think it affects
learning at the basic level. I really do.
Yeah I would not be surprised about that.
Until I mean just simply looking at what school lunches
oftentimes serve I mean I remember when I was in the I
don't think they've changed my tune.
I was a student in, like middle school and high school and it
what he's available then was just, it's nothing to write home
about and I don't think it's really changed much.
Since then now, it hasn't yeah. So like what I mean, what
they're consuming there and then like they just go to the next
class after lunch there passed out because they have a massive
blood sugar Spike and then it drops.
And then they have no bandwidth for, you know anything.
I think I was in Spanish class after lunch.
And yeah, I don't recall, I don't know any Spanish if that
does anything. Oh my gosh.
I love it that. Yeah it makes total sense.
Yeah, definitely and I grew up Repeating school lunch and I
actually ate School breakfast too because my parents worked
really early and so I would 6:30 a.m.
I was at school already for there before school care.
And and then we had after school care and like I said, you come
home and it's late. You just go get fast food
because it's easy and we're all tired.
So yeah. It's a cumulation of a lot of
crap. Definitely for me.
So you and your husband have been doing this diet since you
heard that podcast with Rogan and McKenna Peterson and that
was that was published what 2019 that, right?
So, it was, but we did not start doing this until February, 20
21, gotcha 21. Yeah, yeah, and before that I
had been what I would call Tito ish, which is He do most days
and then whatever the hell else, I want to do on the weekend type
of thing like binge on whatever pizza and ice cream, things like
that. So I never really had, you know,
great results. And yeah I did lose a little bit
of weight and but it was never, you know, my dream, my dream
goal in my head of having you know, being high Skinny again,
that was that was always isn't in the back of my head and I
just thought to myself, I'm just stuck at this weight, you know,
this is all, this is how I'm always gonna be and after
listening to that podcast, with with Michaela Peterson and her
talking about fixing her autoimmune issues.
And I know she had terrible arthritis.
I thought, well, I could probably do this and maybe it
would fix my carpal tunnel syndrome and ever thought it
would do everything else, you know.
No it fix all these other problems.
Yeah it did. And it's like, you know, I swear
by it and and like I said my husband's Quito, he is not full
quart of water so he does great with it with when he has and and
how would you define your for carnivore?
Because I feel like there's so many definitions for carnivore
in Quito these days. Sure.
So mine is I pretty much eat beef.
Chicken shrimp. Eggs and butter and then I do do
coffee and I add a little bit of coconut oil to it.
Do you push back for drinking, coffee in the corner more space?
Yeah, I have a little bit and I even kind of openly say like
yeah, I do it. And it seems to be okay for now.
If something changes, I'll stop it.
But I'm like, you know, the do you drink coffee?
Oh hell yeah okay okay yes that's right.
You do duh because like I've seen you you know, you go and
you do your your cold plunge and then you have your coffee.
But yeah, copies is a very important part of my day.
I mean, shoot aren't so that's like the, the time that
crystalline that's like the one time that her and I have
together is when we're having coffee, it's like for 20 minutes
in the morning. So that's like sacred time to
me, that that's so good. It's so important to my husband
and I we we both just read this book.
I don't know if you've heard of a man up.
Have you heard of that I haven't by bade row School Ian, he's an
entrepreneur and he's real big on.
Keeping your relationship with your spouse.
Good. And going on these, you know,
one time a week, you go on a date and it's not negotiable and
my husband. And I have been saying for
years, like, we have to do this. Hmm.
Tonight. Tonight, we're going to go and
see a movie. And I swear, I think it's like
the first time we've gone out to see a movie in, like, five
years. Probably taking the girls with
you. No, nope.
So now they're like they they got to stay out of it because no
matter what we do, it's like, you know, it's so hard to
separate from being a mall, you know, and it's like, I need a
break sometimes. Yeah.
No, totally. For sure.
Yeah, so with y'all starting, you know, keto carnivore 2021,
your daughters were how old at that point.
Aunt, let's see. My daughter, Kate was like 5 and
the baby was, she might have been eight months old, so she
was probably just breastfed most of the point Caitlin, probably a
little bit of everything. Was that a pretty hard
transition for her? Since she had kind of already
been ingrained in what she was eating previously?
Yes. Yes.
Is a very, very difficult transition.
There were a lot of, you know, I'm not going to eat then.
It's like, she would just starve, and she would hold out
until she couldn't hold out anymore.
And then, she would eat what we gave.
Ya a bad biggie talking about it.
I'm like, oh, that sounds harsh. But yeah, when we would go to
the grocery, And she'd be like, oh we gotta get this and we
gotta get that. And I was like, no, we don't
need that anymore. Sorry and she go, oh, man,
that's like it's okay. We're gonna do some other stuff
and then I would just kind of distract her and be like.
So you want to go to the park later or something like that and
believe me. That's so much more important to
her. Yes, spending time with you,
then eating some crap food for like two minutes.
I think when I get like when Roger gets it's older.
I think I'm gonna like they get frustrated at how heavily these
big companies Market to children on food box because I don't
really notice it now because it's not anything that I'm
getting for myself anyways. But I think when he gets old
enough where he's walking to the grocery store aisles and he's
pointing things out, I'll become aware of it more so and yeah,
it's crazy how they play on that, you know, towards the
children's perspective to get you to buy these things that are
just simply not food, even oh It's scary.
It's really scary. And, you know, it's all at that
level where they can see it, you know, it's like low to the
ground and the colors are just crazy and insane.
And yeah, even I tell you what, she did soccer this past summer.
And after every game, they would have a snack.
And I told her, I was like you're packing your own snack.
I was like you cannot eat with their giving.
In out because they would give out those multicolored goldfish,
look like red and green ones. I was like, girl, you cannot
have that crap. Like, you will have a psychotic
meltdown. And she's like, she said, she
would yes, believe me, because it is a real thing, like, food
colors. She just super sensitive to
those. Absolutely, she is a sensitive,
if not more to this stuff than my husband.
My husband. Are both super sensitive people.
So it's like, you know, you pretty much a double it with her
and, you know, and we'll talk about it like, you know, you
your your body can't have this stuff.
This isn't even real food and she's like, you know, I know,
and I'm like, okay, so here's your snack and you can eat that.
But, yeah, it's crazy. It's like these kids, they just
go to the soccer. A thing so they can get their
their gummies afterwards or whatever.
It's like, oh no, they're already addicted, you know?
Yeah. Yeah it's wild.
I don't even know how I'm going to navigate those Waters because
you know kids that they're going to want to do what other kids
are doing. And yes, we are.
Certainly in the minority when it comes to eating healthy
foods, relative to most other kids out there would think so.
Yeah, that's going to be tricky for sure, but it's awesome that
that you and your husband are both kind of on the same page.
Like I talked to some people Like I've got clients whose
spouse significant other are not on the same diet and I can't
even fathom that look. That must be just total chaos in
the home. And I tell you what I am.
So like unbelievably blessed because my husband is like my
number one cheerleader, like he told me all along, he knew, I
could do it. If he knew that I could get to
what I wanted to be and if I didn't have that support, Art.
Like if I was like, okay, my mom and dad like my mom will try to
do, he do and my dad will just sabotage it, you know?
And I just think Dave, like, I can't imagine if my husband was
like here, I made pizza, eat it. Yeah, that would just be, I
mean, that would be terrible. So, I mean, I'm so lucky, I've
got someone in my corner. That's always like, Going to
back me up. And and now the honestly the
struggle is when we do allow our family members to babysit our
children, navigating that and explaining like they can only
eat the food that we pack them. Do not give them, you know, the
pumpkin pie and the Apples and caramel, and whatever they have.
And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, it's January.
And y'all are still getting pumpkin pie.
How do you navigate that? Because I would imagine, oh,
God. Can you probably the biggest
point of contention with you and other family members?
Because of the mean they accidentally?
They don't they don't think it makes a big difference and your
is deep in steeped in the nutrition as you are.
It's like like what do you do? I mean, do they do they do
things just to test you? I mean how is that even on full?
Oh my gosh. It's almost like.
Okay so for example with my mom we have gotten to a point now
where we pack their foods and just say, unless it came out of
the bag, they can't have it. Like point-blank, like don't
even attempt anything else, just anything?
That's in this bag. They can have And that takes a
lot of effort to because I'm like, oh man, I gotta pack all
this stuff and, you know, it's a lot of work, but it's worth it.
Now, my husband's parents, they are going to be a lot slower to
adapt to this. So they're the kind of people
that are like, oh, just a little bit won't hurt her and just let
her have it. Just come on.
And I'm like, no, no, no, we don't do that.
Don't do that and she'll literally be cutting a piece of
pie and be like, can she have this?
And so my daughter's just like, oh please please, oh my, oh my
gosh, I have to look like this monster that's like, you know,
absolutely not cannot have that. And, you know, in my head, I'm
thinking, you can't have it either, you have all these
health problems. Yeah, yeah.
That's going to be tricky. I can't even imagine what I'm
gonna do in that situation because like, my mom, I could
see totally being on the same page.
My dad. Not so much, you know, so like,
I don't know. It's so interesting, you know,
because I think a lot of people assume that like, your whole
family eats like you do and it's just not the case.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely not the case.
I mean, I'm like the only one I family.
Yeah, no, I know that's how, you know, Ben and I are just like
these crazy people that do this and And it's like, you know, he
told them he's like, you know, Melanie's got this YouTube
channel. Oh, really.
What about psycho? She talks about her the
carnivore diet and how much it's helped her.
Oh, okay. And then they'll just move on
and nobody cares. Yeah, nobody cares what I do.
Yeah, it's it. It's tough.
It's funny. But yeah, it is it's tough.
But I know you can do it. If if I can do it you can do it
as far as like navigating. These, you know, these kids, you
know, trying to get them to grow up understanding like how
important nutrition is in every part of their life.
Yeah. Thanks simply being honest and
transparent with with the kids, you know like explain to them
why we're eating the way that that we do and how it affects
them and just being like very, very transparent with my if you
do that then hopefully they buy into it.
Yeah. Hopefully alleviate some of that
tension stress that is bound to Eyes, throw the family
get-togethers and Gatherings. Yes yes absolutely.
And you know, my one daughter, she's old enough to have seen me
before when I was heavier and social, you know, I'll say, you
know, how mommy was heavy and sick all the time.
I feel like, you know, you don't want that to happen to you.
So we that's why we eat, you know, the way to do now.
And so it's just more of like leading by example, you know?
No, like your son's going to grow up knowing like oh well
this is normal. This is what we do.
And that's the best thing is to just lead, by example.
Yeah. I feel like a lot of people, I
mean, even if none of that if we were to throw all this
nutritional stuff out the, the window and it was not even
applicable anymore, like, none of the researchers there and
there was no biological applications like all of that
wasn't, you know, a non-issue like if it was just all gone
just simply addressing it from the standpoint of If you know
what makes more sense as a human being, I don't think the answer
is eating a bunch of Highly processed hyper palatable junk
food with no nutrient quality and fancy packaging.
That that just doesn't seem like the right common-sense solution,
you know. And so a lot of the backlash I
get is well, how do you know the people you're listening to?
And Grant their medical doctors that I'm following and listening
to How do you know that they're right.
And everybody else is wrong and I said you know it doesn't take
a genius to step outside and see how fat and sick everybody's
gotten. Yeah, you know, so obviously
what they were doing isn't working and that's kind of my my
thing is just, you know, it kind of reminds me of what you just
said, About, let's just think for a minute here, like
throughout all the medical jargon everything.
And just think what makes sense, do you think we would have been
eating this? It even think about my, my
grandmother, she was born in 1920 and I think to myself, what
would she have thought? Would she have thought?
Yeah, this looks like good food. Or would she say, what is this?
Yeah, I remember. Yeah.
I like, I remember giving her a fruit roll-up.
When I was a little kid and she, she said it tastes like plastic
and I'll never forget that. I mean she was just baffled by
like what I was eating and you know she's very German and they
did a lot of, you know, liver and the they would eat
braunschweiger which is yeah I love ranch wagon.
Yeah yeah. So should say that's cooked
organ. Meat.
That is so good for you and she's right.
She was right. There's a lot of things my
grandma did and said, is that I'm like, dang she was smart.
Yeah, 100%. So you mentioned your YouTube
channel, talking about that. So what what compelled you to
start a YouTube channel and start putting your, your journey
out there for others to see? um, I feel like it is my duty to
spread a message of Hope and healing to anybody out there
that's suffering with, especially with Interstitial
cystitis because right now, there is no cure for that.
Technically, there's just treatments and tons of pretty
painful procedures, things like that and I've had such amazing
success Us on this diet that I just felt compelled to share my
experience. And then you know my husband
kept saying like you got to do a video on this, you got to do
videos and I just I would tell myself no no I can't do that.
I don't have the setup, I don't have quality camera quality
camera with all these other people have and he's like, no,
just do it. Just do it.
And I was like, all right, I'm just going to do it and I got so
much positive. Feedback that it was just like,
wow. Because you know, my friends and
family that I'm around, they don't want to have any.
They don't want to hear anything about it.
Yeah. You could care less and in fact,
they think it's crazy. So to experience all these other
people out there and hear about their stories of healing, like,
it's just unbelievable. What this can do.
And so, yeah, I feel like I have to spread this message that
there's a, you know, an option for people to do this.
And I don't know if it's a hundred percent going to work
for somebody but he'll it's worth a shot because I've been
in a really dark place before where I thought I'm going to
probably be on disability and never be able to have a job
because of this this just you know this condition.
Yeah. In front of just Completely be
gone is like, how is this possible?
So yeah that's that's something that just ignited, this spark in
me that I want to have a channel.
And then my next thing is I'd like to write a book and I don't
even know how to start but I want to do that.
That's on the list. That's certainly good.
You can certainly do it. Yeah, yeah.
So I just I feel very passionate about it and I want to do this
kind of stuff. And, you know, I saw you speak
at the keto palooza and a bunch of other awesome people
speaking. And I thought pan, I want that
to be me next year. I was I want to be up on that
stage talking, well, definitely fine.
Yeah, definitely. Don't lose that passion.
And shoot the whole reason. I wanted to even get you on the
podcast just because like, I could tell when we spoke Like
you just had this had a spark in your eye you know.
Like I feel like I mean that sounds like the way that sounds
like but like when I first started the dime and it really
helped me recover from everything that I was struggling
with disordered eating Tendencies.
Really - relationship with food all of that.
Like I was just so invigorated. I got my life back.
I was I was liberated and I wanted to spread that message
which is why I start the podcast, which is why I started
a YouTube channel and they have any Fancy camera equipment
either. And it's just grown to what it
has now. Organically by just simply
sharing my journey and I feel like a lot of people especially
now 2023, the keto diet has been around for quite some time that
the Google trend has come and Fallen.
It's not in its, you know, Zenith of popularity as it was
back in 2017, 18, whatever that was but there's so many people
that are experiencing tremendous benefit from it.
And whenever I come into contact with people that That have that
burning passion for it and just fuel compelled to share their
story. I feel like it's my
responsibility to give them a platform to do that because
that's what's all about. Like you your story is going to
resonate with some it's not going to resonate with others
but to give you an opportunity to have it touch some people's
ears and the right way so that maybe they'll give it a shot
themselves, maybe they'll get their life back.
I mean that's that's what song about like this, this organic
natural growth of people trying things that are so far outside
of the Status quo that it's scary to do so but if they do
and it works for them then their whole life trajectory can be
changed for the better. Absolutely.
And yeah, after we had our brief conversation at keto palooza and
you were like, hey yeah, I'll do I'll, you know, reach out to me
and we can do something. I was just like oh my God, I was
like this guy doesn't even know me and he's going to just let me
like do this like what a good person and my Husband and I just
talk the whole way home, like I just can't believe this
happened. I'm like, I just talked to Quito
Savage and he, he might put me on a podcast like, oh my gosh.
And so, you know, some time had passed and finally, I got up the
nerve to email you and be like, I want to do it.
I'm ready. So, yeah, by you, you know, just
saying those few kind words, it just it propelled me into what I
am now and I know it's going to just Get better from here.
So I'm very thankful that I ran into you when I did.
Yeah. Because I think you know it's
like perfect timing is it's really cool.
Well, I'm grateful to have met you as well and everybody in the
space, not every most people in the space are genuinely in it
for the right reasons and truly do care about one another and
they don't have this competitive mentality.
It's like a very healthy Community for the most part.
So I do Don't think you have any issues, you know, reaching out
to people and then being receptive to you and what you're
trying to share and say obvious, there's everything I could do by
all means. Just let me know.
I'm happy to help because I mean I can tell and I could tell them
we spoke that you're in it because you simply want to help
people and that's what it should all be about.
Thank you so much. I do I want to help people more
than anything and I feel so fortunate to, you know, Be able
to do this and, you know, I want to do a lot with it.
Yeah. I can't believe that.
You know, I can't believe I'm talking to you right now in this
podcast, even. So this is your first.
This is your first podcast, right?
Yes. Yes.
There you go. Perfect.
Perfect job. You did great.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Melanie word
people. Yeah, yeah.
Where do people go to find out? More about you, subscribe to our
YouTube channel and just a little deeper.
Into your world. Sure.
So I'm carnivore Queen on YouTube and you can check me out
there. I have about 100 videos on there
right now and yeah I also have, you know, an email on there and
if anybody wants to email me they can do that.
And that's all I have right now. I don't have I'm not on Facebook
and I'm not on Instagram. Add yet.
Yeah. Yeah.
On Instagram that. Yes.
So that is something. You know what I did?
I actually ordered that book crush it.
That you recommended. Yeah.
And I'm reading it right now and I'm like, oh gosh I gotta get on
Instagram like yesterday and that's like an older book like a
lot of stuffs probably dated but the underlying message is 1000%
still Rings true. So like right, right.
So I think I'm going to do it. I know I'm going to do it.
Yeah, I'm going to do it and I'll get on there.
Melanie, I am glad to have you in the space.
I am grateful to have that opportunity to chat with you on
the podcast and the community as a whole is better for having you
as part of it. So if there's ever anything I
could do by all means, just let me know.
Absolutely, I'll thank you so much for this opportunity.
I really appreciate everything and I'm so appreciative of all
the content that you put out there, you know, I love seeing
how you you and your wife, and as a family, how you go about
your day and I think it's wonderful.
It's, you know, you're promoting this healthy.
Wonderful lifestyle, that that I think a lot of people need to
see. So I appreciate that.
And I don't know how to do it any other way.
It's just the life that we live. I'm just taking it in one day at
a time. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely awesome. Well Melanie, until next time
you have a wonderful wonderful day and a great 20 23 ahead of
you. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Robert. Thank you.